Seamlessly Uninterrupted Migration From One Ecommerce Platform To Another

[Ross McElroy-Gray]

That is what I am looking for!

I know this question has popped up before and I have read a few article on this but they are dated and so I am looking to see if there is any current advice, particularly from people you have recently made a move.

Our website was originally built using Mrsite back in 2014 and has been hosted by them ever since. Although we had the most expensive package, they never upgraded or invested in any new software / interfacing or plugins in that 4 years.

We have just got by and compromised with the package up until now. Mrsite has recently been taken over by Tsohost who offer zero support which is pretty much the push it has given us to decide to move.

We haven't looked in detail at any other platform packages yet. I'm guessing that other providers will just say "yes it is easy, there won't be any down time or bugs to deal with!". I would however like to hear of other peoples experiences and advice if possible.

With the new platform we would like the following benefits - So, if anyone can recommend;

• Great support with quick online chat or if on the phone, easy to talk to someone without waiting forever then getting through to India and not be able understand them!
• Fast checkout, one click Paypal integration
• Ability to develop further without being limited and told "it can't be done"
• Good and easy SEO tools for the UK market
• Nicely set out product filters - we have them but the setting out is terrible and have been told they can't be moved to the place we want them
• Be able to migrate whilst keeping the website intact with all product attributes and drop down lists the same, there are over five thousand which had to be hand typed, it took months so we don't want to have to redo that!

Then there is the big one - Seamlessly Uninterrupted Migration From One Ecommerce Platform To Another! We can't afford any down time as 70% of revenue is online. Can one website stay online while the other is copied and pasted to another platform? I know that sounds stupid but you understand what I mean...

Thank you for reading, any advice and current experience or knowledge is greatly appreciated,

Cheers,

Ross.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Yes its possible to carry out a migration and to have zero, or very little downtime. This is true from pretty much any existing system to any new system if the research, planning and resource is in place.

In reality we'd need to know a lot more about your business to answer properly. From your plans and important products, to marketing channels and internal resource for copy, content, product setup, marketing etc.

As an example, depending on your existing organic search engine performance and marketing, (assuming your Topshelfuk.co.uk): -

• You might be better starting from scratch, at least with design, as the current site is a non responsive design. Taking what works and improving it; e.g. some of your organic rankings are OK, however, it's likely the site could be improved a lot conversion wise
• You don't say whether you want someone to complete an ecommerce build for you, or whether you want to migrate yourself to another shopping platform
• What your budget and timelines are to move to a new ecommerce provider
• Any integrations would also need to be taken into consideration; e.g. email/CRM, accounting, fulfilment and distribution etc.
• Are there any alternative sales channels that need factoring in; e.g. selling via Amazon, eBay etc.
• It looks like you carry out a lot of paid marketing. This should be in the migration plan, to migrate the AdWords landing pages and any other systems that run off the site; e,g, Google Merchant Centre product feeds
• Have you got access to all systems for a proper managed migration. This ensures everything can be tested and swapped seamlessly, so there are no unexpected bugs and all backlinks and SEO value is retained; e.g. site CMS, hosting, email settings, Google Analytics, Google Search Console etc.

There is loads more detail to go into to understand and do this well, we've migrated sites from walled clunky systems to Magento and WooCommerce, so its certainly doable. It just depends on the project being scoped and managed properly.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I'm going through this very procedure at the moment (migrating from a very old version of Opencart to a brand new sparkly 'right up to date' Prestashop V1.7.3.3). I've been kicking this particular can down the road for sometime (to avoid having to do it), but I've run out of road & the can is in tatters. So, I'm winging it on my own .... I'll let you know how seamless it was in a few weeks time! (I'm taking the opportunity to move hosting provider too...as my present one sucks more than any web host should rightly suck)

in essence you ask a webhost to provide you with a temporary IP address (for your new build) - you can then configure away on that till the cows come home ...once you're happy you swing the name servers to point your new host. (re avoiding manually re-keying your product data - exporting from your current site should be an option, but nevertheless expect lots of imcompatibilities to do with formatting ....in short, even if you find a slick way of doing it, it's still going to be a lot of work!)

 

[antropy]

Then there is the big one - Seamlessly Uninterrupted Migration From One Ecommerce Platform To Another! We can't afford any down time as 70% of revenue is online. Can one website stay online while the other is copied and pasted to another platform? I know that sounds stupid but you understand what I mean...

Indeed it can, I wrote a blog article about how to do that technically here:
https://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/the-antropy-ecommerce-website-transfer-process/

This is what we do for our clients.

nevertheless expect lots of imcompatibilities to do with formatting ....in short, even if you find a slick way of doing it, it's still going to be a lot of work!)

Unless you pay professionals who do it all day long to do it

 

[Aqueous]

Reading the OP here it seems that the question is built around Ross doing it himself. From our experience, unless you have awesome dev skills (in which case you wouldn't be asking this question) I agree with antropy above, pay professionals to do it for you.

The key here is not whether you can build it yourself and transfer it yourself, but how you would put things right when they go wrong (and they will....)

Best of luck!

 

[Pish_Pash]

The key here is not whether you can build it yourself and transfer it yourself, but how you would put things right when they go wrong (and they will....)

.....you swing the nameservers back to your original site...and then get busy on Google to find the solution to the problem for your new site! (a bit like what developers do!)

 

[Aqueous]

Absolutely! My question, however, was whether the OP could do that?

 

[GURUCLOUD]

Indeed it can, I wrote a blog article about how to do that technically here:
[/QUOTE

This guide is assuming that you are moving the same system ie. Opencart to Opencart however the OP mentions he's moving from mrsite (who were/offered sitebuilder software I believe?) to new cart software. So i'm not sure this type of migration would be possible.

Did you use their sitebuilder software and/or do you get any sort of FTP access? Sadly it looks like the mrsite website is now just a 'We've moved to TSOHost' page now so couldn't really see anything about the package or features you may or may not have!

 

[Page]

I think what might matter is how much you are turning over and how much it matters/costs if not seamless

Versus the cost of migrating

You also need to think about the longer term direction and what you want from your new software

If you are still on Mr Site - my guess is not much but maybe you have tweaked it within an inch of its life

No platform ticks every box - none of them are perfect and more you use a developer and the better your developer the more it will cost

It might be that shopify will tick the boxes for you - but it will mean that no everything is possibel

Maybe wordpress and woocommerce

Maybe even Magento - but then up the costs

If I was you I would work out where you are going to end up on and why and then come back to the migration

BTW Pish Pash is a very smart cookie so what he can do you probably could not or you would not be asking the question

I would plan on paying to help with the migration but be very careful where you are then moving to because that is key to the long term

If we forget the real world - how much do you think/hope you might have to spend to make the migration

Sharing that information will help give people and idea on where you are at and advise accordingly

I know it all depends - but we start somewhere

At the moment I assume more than 1p and less that £1M